Monday, 25 June 2007

Gay-friendly cities have more economic prosperity

Since last weekend it was the Gay Pride in Athens (also in Toronto as my friend Fotini informed me) let's write something about gays.

I found this research from the George Mason University in USA. According to it, the more "gay-friendly" a city is, the more "economically prosperous" it will be. In his March 2007 paper (which can be read here), they use a "Gay Index" to show that "artistic, bohemian, and gay populations" have significant effects on housing values. They also found that gay-friendly areas typically support technological innovation and higher income levels. Additionally, educated young people tend to move to the most gay-friendly cities, because they generally have the best job markets.

Could those cities really owe their prosperity to gays?

Yes and no. I believe in the power of the citizen. When citizens are not supressed, and they are able to hunt their happiness and dreams they can do miracles. Either they are gay or not. So it's not that gay people are bettter than others. It's just that those cities make sure that a piece of them, an important one actually (10%), is free to act as it wills and has no obstacles or supression. They give it a chance to do miracles.

That can be a good lesson for Greece. The Greek politicians have not realised yet the power of the citizen (maybe only George Papandreou). Last week the mayor of Athens (Nikitas Kaklamanis) refused to put Athen's Gay Pride 2007 under the auspicies of the City Hall (municipality). He received very strong critisism about that.

The sooner Greeks wake up, the better for them. Especially in the gay issue, the whole Europe laughs when they hear that the country in which homosexual love was invented (or at least flurished) is actually... homophobic!